Category: Novels
WHEN folks are not in accord, and especially if there is fear on one side, communication of all kinds is difficult enough, but personal companionship is well-nigh unendurable. Often and often in evenings not so long ago William Henry had hesitated to come in on his father’s ve...
THE first night of one new play is much the same as that of another, I suppose, all the world over. The opening and shutting of doors, the rustling of silks and satins, the murm...
8. CHAPTER XXVI.THE arrangements made between Mr. Samuel Erin, on behalf of his son William Henry, ‘an infant,’ with Mr. Albany Wallis, for the production of the play were eminently satisfactor...
9. CHAPTER XXVII.WILLIAM HENRY performed his promise punctually, and presented himself next morning at Drury Lane. He had never been inside a theatre by daylight before, and the contrast of the...
10. CHAPTER XXVIII.A DROLL rogue of my acquaintance, whom (one tried to think) the force of circumstance, rather than any natural disposition, had driven from the pavement of integrity into the gu...
5. CHAPTER XXIII.ALL THAT had gone before as regarded the Shakespeare MSS. sank into almost insignificance as compared with the stir made by the ‘Vortigern and Rowena.’ The superiority of new la...
6. CHAPTER XXIV.THE last two days had been very trying ones for the little household in Norfolk Street, and, though success had crowned their hopes, they bore marks of the struggle that evening...
14. CHAPTER XXXII.IT is a terrible thing to be left alone with one’s dead, and this might in some sort be said to have been Margaret’s case when Mrs. Jordan had departed. Her Willie had become as...
13. CHAPTER XXXI.THOSE words, ‘I am Mrs. Jordan,’ were not unexpected by Margaret. There was no need for her visitor to speak them or to throw back her hood; she had known her from the first. Wh...
4. CHAPTER XXII.‘THE book goes bravely, Samuel,’ observed Mr. Erin, as father and son were sitting together one evening with Margaret between them. William Henry’s hand was resting on the back...
2. CHAPTER XX.IF Mr. Erin imagined that ‘what Malone would say _now_’—i.e. after the discovery of the ‘Lear’ manuscript—must needs be in the way of apology and penitence, he was doomed to dis...
3. CHAPTER XXI.WHEN one is not _en rapport_ with one’s friends about any particular subject, in which for the time they are interested, it is better to leave them, for it is certain they would...
16. CHAPTER XXXIV.THERE is nothing more astonishing in the history of mankind than the high estimation in which credulity—under the form of belief—has been held by all nations who have had the le...
17. CHAPTER XXXV.NOT a single night did Margaret sleep away from her uncle’s roof. He went in person to Mr. Wallis’s house and claimed her. The apology he had schooled himself to make to that ge...
7. CHAPTER XXV.was a very great man in those days in many ways; but what made him just now of especial importance to Mr. Samuel Erin was that he was the manager of Drury Lane Theatre.
15. CHAPTER XXXIII.AS Margaret and her uncle sat at breakfast the next morning—later than usual, as was their wont on Sundays—scarce a word was interchanged between them. Her pale face and haggard...
11. CHAPTER XXIX.‘I KNOW what you are come for,’ said Margaret in a broken voice, which had yet no touch of tenderness in it. ‘You are come for this letter.’ She snatched it from the drawer and...
1. CHAPTER XIX.WHEN folks are not in accord, and especially if there is fear on one side, communication of all kinds is difficult enough, but personal companionship is well-nigh unendurable. O...